Progressive Meshes with Controlled Topology Modifications

Abstract

Due to the rapid evolution of 3D acquisition and modeling methods highly complex and detailed models became ubiquitous. In order to be able to cope with the complexity, concentrated efforts were dedicated to the development of new mesh decimation methods in the recent years. In works of Garland and Heckbert and Popovic and Hoppe, the traditional edge contraction operator was generalized to vertex contraction, which allowed for topology modification during the decimation. The vertex contraction facilitates the joining of originally disconnected regions of the mesh by contracting vertices lying in different connected components of the model. While this operation provides considerable topological flexibility during the mesh simplification, in some cases joining of disconnected regions might be desirable only along the boundaries of the model.

As a combination of two already available techniques, we present a mesh decimation technique allowing for increased control over topology changes induced by the decimation process. Our method proceeds in essence by applying two types of operators: the well known edge contraction and the vertex-edge contraction introduced recently by Borodin et al. This facilitates efficient mesh simplification and gradual closing of gaps along the boundaries of the model. The process is controlled by a geometric error and since inverse operations may be implemented for both of the operators, it is conducted in a progressive manner.

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Bibtex

@INPROCEEDINGS{borodin-2002-progressive-2,
author = {Borodin, Pavel and Klein, Reinhard},
title = {Progressive Meshes with Controlled Topology Modifications},
booktitle = {OpenSG Symposium 2002},
year = {2002},
month = jan,
institution = {Universit{\"a}t Bonn},
howpublished = {http://www.opensg.org/OpenSGPLUS/symposium/Papers2002/index.EN.html},
keywords = {level of detail, mesh simplification, progressive representation, topology modification},
abstract = {Due to the rapid evolution of 3D acquisition and modeling methods highly complex and detailed models
became ubiquitous. In order to be able to cope with the complexity, concentrated efforts were
dedicated to the development of new mesh decimation methods in the recent years. In works of Garland
and Heckbert and Popovic and Hoppe, the traditional edge contraction operator was generalized to
vertex contraction, which allowed for topology modification during the decimation. The vertex
contraction facilitates the joining of originally disconnected regions of the mesh by contracting
vertices lying in different connected components of the model. While this operation provides
considerable topological flexibility during the mesh simplification, in some cases joining of
disconnected regions might be desirable only along the boundaries of the model.
As a combination of two already available techniques, we present a mesh decimation technique
allowing for increased control over topology changes induced by the decimation process. Our method
proceeds in essence by applying two types of operators: the well known edge contraction and the
vertex-edge contraction introduced recently by Borodin et al. This facilitates efficient mesh
simplification and gradual closing of gaps along the boundaries of the model. The process is
controlled by a geometric error and since inverse operations may be implemented for both of the
operators, it is conducted in a progressive manner.},
conference = {OpenSG Symposium 2002}
}